


Toast

by whenyoudesertme (phrenk)



Series: Astray [2]
Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe, College, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenk/pseuds/whenyoudesertme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becky meets Aiba at a dorm party, and he really wants to talk to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toast

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to [Astray](http://archiveofourown.org/works/367094), but no knowledge of that is necessary. Thanks to kinoface for beta-reading! ♥ Cross-posted [here](http://whenyoudesertme.livejournal.com/27017.html).

"Hey mermaid eyes, you're blocking the bathroom, and I've really got to pee."

Becky blinked at the husky voice, then registered the antsy movements of the lanky person in front of her. She moved aside, casting a wry look at Aya, and chuckled when the guy stumbled over the threshold with an expression of some urgency.

She and Aya moved across the room, trying to find a space to sit and chat, but there were people everywhere, though none quite as handsome as the drunkard who'd called her... mermaid eyes? What did that even mean? Becky shoved that thought aside when she saw a chair open up, and she and Aya squished in together, discussing their respective roommates and, yet again, how much they looked forward to living together after graduation.

"Hello again."

They looked up, Aya smothering a giggle when she saw who it was. Becky rolled her eyes.

The tall stranger was undeterred. "I would like to discuss, um, let's discuss!"

Becky smiled politely. "We're already having a discussion here--Aya-chan!"

Aya bowed politely to the encroaching man, eyes twinkling. "I need a drink anyway. I'll be back, Becky!"

Becky grumbled to herself, then caught the stranger's bright eyes on the small space in the chair beside her. She quickly stood up.

"Becky-san? I'm Aiba Masaki! Want to sit down, I mean, back down?"

"No, thank you," Becky said automatically. "And let's not discuss whatever it is you want to discuss, either."

Even his fluffy hair seemed to droop as his face fell.

She found herself clarifying, "Conversations work much better when people are at the same level of intoxication."

When he just blinked at her, she put a hand in the air, saying, "Like if we were both where I am, sober, we could talk." Then she lifted her hand as high as she could without her shirt riding up. "Or if we were both where you are, drunk, well, we might not be much to listen to, but I bet we'd find each other fascinating."

He was smiling now, and she wondered if he was usually so effortlessly happy or if this was the alcohol's influence.

"There's an easy fix, you know! Let me get you a drink?"

She squinted at him, but his open face appeared innocent of any dirty motives. So she just shook her head, adding, "I have to go soon, I'm getting up to go study in the morning."

He was swaying a bit, but at this he said, "Oh yeah? Where?"

She laughed and said, "University Library, down in the stacks. If you can remember that, get yourself out of bed in the morning, and meet me there, I will be truly impressed."

He tapped on his temple in a grandiose, slightly wobbly fashion. "Tomorrow I will think there's something important and I'll look it up on, dot dot dot..."

She waited for the punchline, but he seemed to have started thinking about something else, and then he said, "Oh! What's your major? I couldn't think of a line to use on you because you're just, ugh, so pretty, all my thoughts just go--" He shot his hands out to the side dramatically.

She said coolly, refusing to be flustered though she could feel herself blush, "I'm going to be an interpreter, Aiba-san. I study languages, diplomacy, politics, stuff like that."

He fixated on: "Languages! More than one?" They moved easily in the flow of the crowd as a couple grabbed the seat Becky had vacated.

"Yes," she said dryly. "I speak Japanese, English, and Korean fluently, and I'm decent with Mandarin. Right now I'm studying Spanish."

His eyes were huge. "Three, no, four, wait, you speak five languages? Wait, wait, wait. I speak Japanese!" he said proudly, then stressed, "Fluently. So we have something in common!"

When she gave him a sarcastic thumbs-up, he wilted. Then he perked up again and said, "An _interpreter_. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. I'm going to sit down over there, okay, Becky-san? Okay?"

She patted him on the shoulder kindly, but he surprised her by laughing, "Not because I'm so drunk I can't stand! I'm going to sit down, there, if that's okay, and sober up. Sober up so I can talk to you, Becky-san. I'll be back."

She stood there for a moment, watching him carefully make his way across to the proposed seat. After sitting, he looked for her, expression ludicrously anxious, but when he saw she was still standing there, he flashed her double peace signs and the brightest grin she had ever seen in her entire life.

When Aiba looked away, unfreezing her, Becky shook her head firmly. She couldn't wait around for some drunk airhead to sober up and talk to her some more. She was already out later than she'd meant to be; she had to go home and go to bed. Languages did not learn themselves, and Becky had plans.

*

Becky next saw Aiba two weeks later, during which interval she resolutely wasn't disappointed that he never showed up at the library, and she certainly didn't go down to the stacks more often in the hope that he would find her.

As it turned out, she found him at another party. She saw his long limbs and expressive gesturing and knew him even from the back, but she hesitated, not sure she wanted to initiate contact.

Then he turned and saw her, and his whole face lit up.

"Becky-san!" He came striding across the room, beaming at her. "I'm sober, I've been sober at every party since I met you!"

She deadpanned, " _What_ a sacrifice," but he just laughed.

"It was! Drunk people are really boring, Becky-san."

"You don't say."

At this he looked so sad that she nearly reassured him that his drunk self certainly hadn't bored her, but she held it in just in time, because he recovered and said, "Well, now I'm sober! And you're sober! Unless?"

He leaned down close to her, inspecting her eyes, and she flushed.

"Too close, Aiba-san!"

"Ah, sorry. Do you know, though, I think we are the only two sober people in this room? That means we just have to talk, there is no helping it."

His eyes were crinkled at the edges with how pleased he was, and Becky laughed without restraint, not contesting the point.

"Do you know, Aiba-san, that there is a free chair right over there? If you hurry and grab it, we could discuss... things! What exactly was it you wanted to discuss?"

Aiba cocked his head, then abandoned trying to remember for the moment as he abruptly sprinted across the room and beat out another person who'd hoped for the free seat.

"Becky-san!" he called, waving vigorously. "Come sit by me!"

She made her way across the room, smiling helplessly as her chest tightened with joyful anticipation, just from the idea of talking with this dope.

"Becky, Becky!" Aya's voice was very close and very high-pitched, and Becky spun, finding her best friend looking anxious.

"Aya-chan?"

"Yu-chan and Shun-kun are fighting again, and she's started throwing things."

"Shit," Becky sighed, looking over at Aiba, who was grinning at her like he could be patient a long time as long as she was going to come to him.

"I wouldn't interrupt your free night, but you know how their fights escalate, and you have a lot of stuff in that room, too."

Becky's jaw dropped. "Let's go, I just have to--oh, let's go, if she breaks any of my things!" She waved back apologetically to Aiba, who started up from his seat with confusion.

"Another time, Aiba-san!"

*

A week later, languages were leaking out Becky's ears no matter how much she tried to stuff them back in. She dropped her head onto her book, sighing, and felt the bed dip next to her with Aya's weight.

"You need to get drunk."

Becky considered this. "Agreed. When is my next free day?"

"Today," Aya said firmly.

Becky conceded the point, crying, "To the liquor store!"

"No need. There's a party just two floors up."

Cracking her knuckles, Becky muttered, "All right, all right, let's do this. You've got me?"

"Yeah, of course," Aya said. "You get drunk, I'll keep you safe, and tomorrow everything will suck a little less."

*

Everything was wonderful, Becky decided.

"If everything's wonderful, then I can have this drink, right?" Aya coaxed the cup out of Becky's hand. "I'll get you some water. Some wonderful water, Becky-chan!"

Becky nodded violently, the room swirling around her. Moments or minutes later, something nudged her foot.

"Becky-san?"

She wrenched her eyes open, surprised when it wasn't such an effort after all. "Ah! Aiba-san! I am dr-not drunk! Unless you are drunk, are you drunk?"

Aiba's big eyes took her in slowly. Then he brightened. "That's okay, I haven't been nearly as dedicated as you tonight, but let me get some alcohol into myself and then we can talk!"

"Wait," Becky said, shaking her fist in his face. "Nothing going's to happen tonight." She laughed to herself, then accepted the water from the best friend suddenly at her side, utilizing grace and dignity.

"You're slopping all over your shirt, Becky," Aya sighed, then grinned up at Aiba. "I'm going to sit right over here, okay? Becky-chan, I'm going to sit right over here and talk to Shige-kun, call if you need anything."

Becky blew Aya a kiss, smiling widely. Then she turned back to Aiba and said sternly, "Nothing!"

He tilted his head sadly. "We can't talk again tonight? I get drunk fast, I promise!"

"No, I mean, yes, get drunk, but no kissing. No kissing!" She waved a finger in his face, amused when his eyes followed it so that he looked drunk already.

Then he met her eyes and nodded resolutely. "I'll be right back!"

When he returned, he had three drinks carefully gripped between the fingers of one hand and a dry-erase board in the other.

Becky swayed slightly. "Whose door did you rip that off?"

He waved a hand negligently. "Sho-chan's. Now, I took two shots in his room, and grabbed these three drinks--ah, they're all for me, Becky-san!" He downed one quickly, then set the others down as he slid down the wall to sit beside her. He smiled across at Aya, then focused entirely on Becky.

"Now, I brought this over so I could write down your very important command." He scrawled in big, bold letters on the board: DON'T KISS BECKY.

Somehow this didn't make Becky feel happy. Then Aiba shifted closer, though not near enough to feel at all threatening.

"What about tomorrow?"

"Hmm?" Becky said absently, distracted by the way his mouth moved.

"Can I kiss you tomorrow?"

He was so tall and smelled so nice, like he'd been taking a walk in the woods before dropping in to mingle with his beer-soaked peers.

She caught herself. "You can't ask me now!"

"Because you're drunk," Aiba said wisely. Becky opened her mouth indignantly, and he brushed her wrist, laughing. "Wait, wait."

He wrote underneath his first edict: ASK BECKY IF YOU CAN KISS HER TOMORROW.

Becky looked up at him, charmed and woozy, and he grinned back down at her. "Now, how many drinks did you have?"

*

Aiba was slumped against the couch, making noises that approached snores, and Becky snorted to herself.

They'd discussed at last, though what exactly they'd talked about, Becky couldn't remember. She remembered dancing, and many cups of water from her diligent Aya, and one moment where she felt sure Aiba was going to kiss her. He'd broken away at the last second, looking reluctant, then held up the dry-erase board with its rules before going to get another drink.

Becky sighed. Now he was asleep, and she still didn't have his number, and she was cursing herself for insisting on no drunk kissing. He was so warm, she thought, edging closer, and so pretty.

She found herself leaning over him, studying the dark curl of his eyelashes, the golden hue of his skin, the inviting tilt of his soft lips.

Before she realized it, she was kissing him. It was sweet, so sweet, for half a second, and then she pulled away, horrified, and smacked herself hard on the head.

"Becky-chan, don't hit yourself," Aya said drowsily, eyes already closing again.

Looking around the room, Aya's room, Becky's sick guilt was magnified over and over by her intoxication, by her own rules and how Aiba wasn't even conscious to witness her breaking them. She hit her forehead again, this time quietly, and then reached over and stole the whiteboard Aiba still held tightly in one hand.

She wiped it clean with sloppy precision, the sort that meant it took her a very long time and she hit three out of four corners. Then she wrote down, APOLOGIZE TO AIBA-SAN. She considered this, wondering if she'd remember why, then added FOR KISSING HIM.

A surge of renewed shame rolled over her, making everything seem monumentally shitty, so she added: WHILE HE SLEPT.

Then she turned it over carefully on the floor, rolled a few inches away from Aiba's tempting body, and slept.

*

After downing painkillers the next morning, Becky set out to find Aiba and apologize. Aya had left a note that Aiba had stumbled back to his own dorm sometime in the night, so Becky's only lead was the dry-erase board still face-down on the carpet.

Her plan, such as it was, was to roam the hallways of her dorm until she found the one with a space where its whiteboard should be, and then she'd ask this friend of Aiba's, Sho, just where he could be found.

She brushed her teeth with the toothbrush she kept in Aya's room, straightened her casual clothes from the night before, and started on her mission.

It ended quickly, when she walked down the floor the party had been on and Aiba came out of one of the doors. Becky froze, then tried a smile, then remembered why she was there.

She stalled. "This is your room?"

He rubbed at his tousled hair. "Ah, this is Sho-chan's! I live in another dorm, so I slept here... after sleeping... Aya-chan's room, right?"

He looked like his head hurt as bad as hers did, and Becky winced. "Yeah." She wiped her palms on her jeans, then said, "Aiba-san, I'm here to apologize. I... while you were sleeping... in Aya-chan's room, well, I kissed you. Just for a moment! But it's inexcusable, and I'm sorry, and--stop with that expression, why would you even do that with your face?"

Aiba's shoulders slouched for a second. "I was trying to wink. Because it's okay! That you'd even want to kiss me is pretty much the best news I've ever--oh. Well."

Becky tensed. "You are upset? I'm so sorry, Aiba-chan."

"It's not that, I just... I've been imagining our first kiss, you know. I wanted it to be romantic, something that was like, something that started us as if--" he cut off, then grinned at her. "But Sho-chan would say I'm overthinking it. Actually, can I have his whiteboard back?"

Becky scrubbed at it hastily with her flannel's sleeve, then handed it over. She was thinking about this person, this idiot, this sweetheart, thinking about how he was considerate and bumbling and stupidly charming.

"You know," she said abruptly. "I've always believed it's the _second_ kiss that really sets the tone for a couple."

"Couple?" Aiba said, eyes enormous, but he was already instinctively leaning toward her. Becky's eyes started to drift shut.

Then Aiba shook himself, though one hand came across to rest lightly on her waist. She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering why they weren't kissing already.

"Becky-san, I haven't even brushed my teeth yet! And we're just in the hallway, there's nothing romantic about--"

"Go brush your teeth, Aiba-chan!"

As he just stared at her, she flailed her arms menacingly, and Aiba went.

When he reemerged, looking sheepish but excited, she grabbed his wrist and towed him down the hallway. By the time they were on the sidewalk, they were running, and by the time they got to the quad, they were laughing.

Finally Becky swung him around with his own momentum before stopping, laughing once more as Aiba nearly tripped and managed to drop the dry-erase board he still had in his other hand. He left it there in the grass, just watched Becky and looked like he was going to start smiling at any moment.

"Okay, Aiba-san."

"Yes, Becky-san?" Aiba said playfully, stepping close.

It was suddenly a bit hard to breathe, but she'd just been running after all, so Becky said firmly, "We're under a cherry blossom tree. Fragrance, drifting petals, the whole deal."

"That's true."

"Kiss me, you idiot!"

Aiba did, bending carefully to catch her lips with his, and after a moment with his hands warm on her shoulders, he slid his arms around her and picked her up. Becky parted her lips, hands coming up to find his hair, a little dirty but still soft. Aiba tasted like toothpaste, like eagerness, and he held her so steadily that she forgot her feet were off the ground, just kissed him and kissed him as the rosy petals fell all around.

A shout interrupted them, one that slowly became intelligible words as lucid thought returned to Becky.

"--And where is my dry-erase board? Seriously, you can't just pull it off, there's adhesive that only works effectively the first time! Hey!"

Aiba, after dropping another kiss on Becky's lips, set her down slowly, like he didn't want to let her go. He picked up the object in question, then scribbled hastily before popping the marker back into the holder and handing the board back over to her.

"I'll see you soon, Becky-chan!"

She gaped as he sprinted back across the grass to head off his friend, then looked down to find a phone number, along with ALL KISSING PERMISSION GRANTED and a couple of obnoxious heart-marks.

Becky laughed to herself, shaking petals out of her hair as she touched her tingling lips. She could tell her commitment to spending most of her time in the library was going to be tested, but she couldn't bring herself to regret a thing.


End file.
